So, Doctor Who is underway, with the new Jodie Whittaker! And I have to admit, I'd been very nervous, given the quality of his previous writing, from the poor characterisation in his Silurians two-parter, to the depths of Torchwood's "Cyberwoman". Now? I'd hardly believe this is the same person. =:D Admittedly, neither of the opening two episodes are especially memorable, but the characters I'm definitely enjoying, and JW absolutely owns the role. And then there's the new composer, with a theme arrangement - and incidental music, too - harking back to the glory days of Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop. If the BBC operated Netflix style series dumps, I'd have binged on the whole lot within a day. ^_^ Very, very happy with how it's going so far.

And you remember that other coproduction the BBC has underway with Netflix, Watership Down? It's looking rather promising, if the initial stills are any guide. Here you go! It'll apparently be four episodes, an hour each.

And there's even a City Watch series on the way, courtesy of the BBC. =:D "Based on Pratchett’s popular “Discworld” novels, “The Watch” will follow Pratchett’s misfit cop characters as they struggle to save a ramshackle city based on the “City Watch” subset of the series. Many of Pratchett’s literary characters will also make an appearance including the City Watch Captain Sam Vimes, the last scion of nobility Lady Sybil Ramkin, the naïve but heroic Carrot, the mysterious Angua and the ingenious non-binary forensics expert Cheery alongside Pratchett’s original characterization of Death." Intriguingly, they won't be adapting his existing books, '“Many years ago Terry made the brave decision to allow brand new Watch stories to be told with his existing characters. It’s taken a long time for anything to happen because we guard these characters with our very lives,” added Wilkins.'

If you're interested in playing around with making music, or actually do, Traktion 7 is now free, available for macOS, Windows, and Linux, in 32 and 64 bit versions. (Curiously, separate versions rather than fat binaries, but no matter) You do have to sign up with your name, location, and email address, but no link is sent - they just want to add you to their mailing list (automatically, of course; consent not required, even as their T&C proudly state they never spam), so feel free to use a throwaway or filtering service like 33mail.com. (I do accept it's kind of them to make it available for free, but really, can't companies get over this obsession with adding people to mailing lists without their consent? Surely a simple "please send me your newsletter" checkbox wouldn't be so difficult, ideally along with an example of what they'll send, and how often)

Here's me! This time, by @scoliwings@scalie.business. In light of the Trump administration's plans to force gender recognition as an immutable genetic characteristic, they offered emergency commissions in exchange for $25+ donations to three trans charities.

Whoa. If you ever wondered where all the humans were in the Pixar Cars flicks, the Creative director has the answer.. and it's considerably more disturbing than one might expect. O.o;

This 2018 Hugo acceptance speech by NK Jemesin is absolutely fantastic. Only 5-6 mins, so it won't take long - you'll be pleased you watched. =:D Be sure to reach the point where she raises the trophy. Truly glorious. ^_^

So! I've no idea how much impact this'll actually have at this point, but still, it's very good to see happen: RISC OS is going open source. ^_^

The room refurbishment begins. ^_^ I've placed an order for a Hue bridge, light strip, and two side lamps, so no longer (once it's all done) will I have all the room's light provided by one LED bulb in the middle of the ceiling, perfectly positioned to ensure anything you look down at is in shadow. =:) And all three devices are fully panchromatic, so I'll be able to play with the coloring and brightness - supposedly, syncing it to music is also an option. =:D Next up: getting an appointment with the council to get one of the old chairs picked up for disposal, along with the mattress and frame, given they're both well past due. Once /that's/ arranged, I can line up delivery of the replacement futon (not as easy to find in the UK, sadly, with many only being intended as guest beds, whereas I'm wanting it as my main) and frame - and, of course, shelving, so once the chairs are out, I can get shelving in, and actually sort all the jumble out. Which'll probably be quite good fun, actually, unearthing stuff I'd mostly forgotten about. =:)

And that duly arrived - I admit, I paid a little extra for next day delivery, just to be able to play with it sooner. It's an amazing amount of fun, being able to control the tone of the lighting so freely, and Hue supports third-party apps too, with more advanced functionality, like keeping the lighting in tone with a film you're playing on your TV, or disco lighting based on spectral analysis of what the app hears. There are cheaper systems around, but, being HomeKit certified means it's practically secure; they also support various other OS' home management options. (Tip: if you have difficulty on macOS getting Hue Sync to work in Music mode - initially, it only stole the audio input and turned the lights off - be sure you gave it permission to access the microphone. I'd declined that during installation, not feeling that to be necessary) I'll want to look into how Hue deals with multiple people accessing different rooms, particularly something like a bathroom, where it'd be a touch unamusing to have someone else turn the lights off while you're in the bath - I'd love to have some more Hue kit around the house, but the roomie tends to be a bit set in his ways, and not generally interested much in matters of aesthetics.

The only downside, really, is that it is fully extensible.. so I now have three lightstrips, now 3m each (up from the stock 2m), in addition to the two Bloom side lamps. ^_^; I'll probably be leaving it there for now, but having said that, a lot will rest on just how the room winds up, once the room's sorted out, and the shelving's in place.

Rather cool. ^_^ I am now a published bunny, in last month's edition of Sciences et Avenir. ^_^ All fully with permission, and paid appropriately. I do rather like the way they've laid the page out, with respect to the photo.

Hilda, on Netflix, looks gorgeous! It's an animated production, apparently based on a graphic novel.

As you've probably heard, Telltale Games is now amongst the walking dead. *sigh* A year ago, they kicked a quarter of their staff to the kerb - 90 people - and around Sep 21 2018, eviscerated the remainder to leave a skeleton crew of 25 to finish off Minecraft Story Mode - all other projects are cancelled. A real shame - they've produced some outstanding story-based adventures over the years, from Sam & Max and Puzzle Agent, to Batman and The Walking Dead.

Here's a wonderfully 80s video: Carpenter Brut - Turbo Killer. Very slickly produced, with a thoroughly cinematic feel - I'd love to see more from that setting!

This looks like being worth seeing, over in London, aimed at promoting under-represented voices in the animation industry: Punanimation, "a new exhibition at Dalston's Pocko Gallery showcasing the varied motion and illustration talent they've assembled so far in the Punanimation directory. Animators taking part include Daniela Uribe, Wednesday Studio (below) and Justyna Stasik, who have contributed their own takes on the group's logo for the show, along with a series of animated shorts."

Here's a rather weirdstory of high temperature superconductivity, which begins with a claim of room temperature superconductivity, but which someone then notices involves a very suspicious pattern of identical noise in two curves. Independently, a well regarded prof in the field begins being publically sceptical, only to be cautioned by a senior prof that he should be cautious with his judgement - and then we find the latter never actually sent such an email. ^_^;

You know, Ice Foxx is a very bad influence on me. Or very good. She's pointed me toward these peeps, Wild Bangarang, as being worth trying for really fun leggings. As you can probably tell, they could be quite hazardous to my account..

Well, I tried resisting, and even held out for a few weeks - but, it was inevitable I'd wind up having to lay my paws on a pair of these. ^_^ (Which the stylist at Tuttii Fruttii loved. Yay! Oh, gods, what a job she did with the coloring of my hair! I still can't believe it took me this long to try coloring. It's a mid-dark brown base, with some autumnal tones brushed in, then lent some gentle curls with a straightener; sadly, I've yet to be able to replicate those curls myself - seems it's not quite as easy as it looks. =:P

Speaking of Doctor Who, I finally got caught up (with the first four episodes)! I feel like she's been getting better and better at the role each episode. Most incarnations start off way too quirky (here's looking at Matt Smith), but that makes sense when the story is that the Doctor's body is all scrambled up from the regeneration.I feel like the whole aesthetic of the show is subtly different, as if it's an entirely different programme. So far it's a nice change of pace, since the last couple seasons were pretty heavy with their drama. They seem to be targeting a younger audience, though, because they take pains to spell out their references and ideas so there's no lost nuance. They've also got exceedingly simple plot lines. (Except for the first episode; that one was very well done.) I'd like to think we don't need two-parters to see complex stories, but you can tell by some of the cuts they're doing that they were trying to shave out a few seconds here and there.

(Maybe they're not catering to the youth, but instead... to Americans?)